Italy welcomes back ancient Head of Hades dug up illegally in 1970s

ROME, Jan 28 (Reuters) - An ancient terracotta rendering of
the head of Hades, god of the underworld, with a trace of blue
in his curly beard is on its way back to Italy decades after
being dug up illegally.

The more than 2,000-year-old statue, dubbed "Bluebeard",
came from one of numerous ancient sites in Italy that were
illegally excavated in the late 1970s, before being sold abroad.

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles acquired the
sculpture in 1985, and decided to return it after similar
fragments were found at a shrine in central Sicily.

The museum said on Thursday it had decided to repatriate
Bluebeard three years ago, but had kept the statue in storage
until Sicilian officials arrived to pick it up this week.

Getty museum officials and Sicilian researchers worked
together to ascertain where the head came from. Curls of its
hair had been found in a shrine to ancient Greek harvest goddess
Demeter.

The head is due in Italy on Friday and will be sent to the
Aidone museum to which the Getty has already returned the "Cult
Statue of a Goddess", known in Italy as the "Morgantina Venus".

Italy's archaeological venues have been plundered so
extensively that the country set up a police corps dedicated to
tracking down treasures which are dug up and smuggled abroad.
(Reporting by Isla Binnie; Editing by Mark Heinrich)